The Will Borgen extension reflects the Rangers' lack of direction
The check engine light is on and the team replaced the steering wheel cover
In an NHL season riddled with mediocrity, all it takes is one good week to get back in the mix. The New York Rangers, at 6-1-3 over a ten game span, went from second to last in the eastern conference to just three points out of a playoff spot with little material improvement in the team’s play. There is a through line connecting the Rangers’ recent change in fortune to the arrival of American defenseman Will Borgen.
At the outset, evaluating Borgen for his NHL time prior to New York was a challenge because of his unique profile. The Minnesota native turned 28 years old back in December shortly after getting traded to the Rangers as part of the trade that sent former second overall pick Kaapo Kakko to the Seattle Kraken.
In the 19 games since Borgen’s arrival, he’s brought a modicum of stability to the Rangers’ second defensive pair alongside K’Andre Miller to the degree the organization felt comfortable giving the largely unproven defenseman a five year contract extension worth $4.1 million per season with degrees of de-escalating no trade protection for the duration of the deal.
From the moment Borgen was acquired, there were whispers that the Rangers had coveted the defenseman for several years and this was a culmination of a long-term vision coming to fruition.
The larger conversation surrounding Borgen and his extension aren’t necessarily about his material impact on a nightly basis, but what it means for the direction of the franchise going forward. Depending on the direction the winds blow on a given day, J.T. Miller could return for a second stint in the home dressing room at Madison Square Garden or Ryan Lindgren, Jimmy Vesey and Reilly Smith could all be sent to more certain playoff-bound pastures.
Walking the fine line within a window of contention is ultimately how general managers across sport are defined. It’s great to make the playoffs, to have series wins and take serious stabs at winning the Stanley Cup. But, there does come a tipping point where a core that was successful begins to plateau or outright regresses.
There’s an argument that the Rangers’ core, in particular their forward group, is already showing signs of age-related decline. But, with Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin well within the established age range of physical primes for the NHL, there is a reticence for the Rangers to pass on a potential playoff berth. Since stakeholders like general managers don’t operate in a vacuum, externalities like revenue and owner expectations make roster decisions a degree further removed from the MBA-style roster management prevalent in other sports.
If the Rangers wanted to take a more long-term approach, the organization could be pumping Borgen’s value up and turning him into futures ahead of March 5th’s NHL trade deadline. Instead, riding a win streak, the Rangers opted to marry themselves to a relatively unproven player for someone already 28 years old.
So, with Drury opting to extend Borgen, clearly envisioning a role for him in the team’s medium to long-term planning, it presents a natural question: just how good is he and is this contract going to be worth it?
An Unusual Profile
In Borgen’s case, the 2015 4th round pick spent 3 years playing college hockey, then 2 seasons in the AHL after being drafted. That put Borgen on a delayed timeline; his crucial inflection seasons to sink or swim at the NHL level also coincided with the COVID-impacted seasons, delaying his opportunity to breakout. Even affording some grace for the factors out of his control, Borgen is 28 years old and has played a grand total of 266 NHL games.
That is a stunningly small sample size for a player at Borgen’s age. Of the 36 defenseman drafted in 2015, Borgen has played the 17th most games. For a fourth round pick, that’s not a terrible return on investment. The conundrum becomes the relationship between experience and cost.
There is an implied understanding that the more something costs on the market, the more certainty is attached. That there is going to be value associated with a higher price point. When NHL players reach unrestricted free agency for the first time, they have several years and hundreds of games played to be evaluated upon. When it comes to defensemen that don’t produce a ton of offense, it’s even more imperative to go deeper than surface-level statistics.
Of the 19 defenseman with fewer games played than Borgen, just one, Alex Carrier, profiles as an NHL regular and he’s largely been a rotational player for the Nashville Predators prior to this season.
The Rangers, who fancy themselves as within a window of Stanley Cup contention, are banking that the Kraken, who weren’t playing Borgen consistently as a 28-year-old, were missing something their pro-scouting department saw. It’s a calculated risk and something that isn’t necessarily bad. Teams should constantly be looking for opportunities to improve their roster and buying low on fringe players is a low cost opportunity that contenders should utilize more.
The Fit Isn’t Clean
What’s most befuddling is the vision for Borgen in the medium and long-term. Functionally, he’s been fine riding with Miller on the second pair and killing penalties. But, the team gave Braden Schneider so much runway in seasons where the Rangers were in pursuit of a Stanley Cup, that prioritizing Borgen feels like that was all for naught.
On top of not being a totally established asset at 28-years-old, Borgen also isn’t a particularly clean fit in terms of the direction of the franchise. While he’s absolutely cauterized a second pair that was bleeding high danger chances like a leaky ship, his age and now extension don’t really line up with when the Rangers might be a cup contender again.
Giving Borgen a five year extension means the organization clearly sees a long-term fit. The problem is that the Rangers traded up to select Schneider at 19th overall during the 2020 draft and both are right-handed. It’s frankly confusing that the team valued Schneider so much over the past few seasons as evident by the lack of accountability for mistakes and trading Nils Lundkvist to avoid a logjam but Borgen passed him in the pecking order as soon as he arrived.
Schneider has a lingering contract question of his own on the horizon and it would’ve made more sense to give him a sink or swim opportunity as a top four defenseman for the remainder of the 2024-2025 season.
Instead, Schneider is averaging the 5th most average time on ice of Rangers defenseman. It’s a bit perplexing how Schneider, someone who the organization used a premium asset on and traded up to select, is being pigeonholed into a third-pair role. While there was some reporting that the Rangers could look to play Schneider on his off side to solidify him in the top four, nothing about his play to date, especially his puck skills make him a logical top four defenseman.
In acquiring Borgen, it made sense that the organization wanted a professional with NHL experience playing top-four minutes during what was ostensibly a lost season, especially for Kakko, someone the team had clearly grown tired of.
The Rangers were in the midst of a 6-16-0 run when Borgen was acquired and conversations about the multi-year direction of the franchise were reasonable. But, because the eastern conference is littered with flawed teams beating up on each other, all it took was a 6-1-3 stretch to get back in the mix. The Rangers at present are on pace for 85 standings points which is seven points less than what the team in the second wild card spot is currently on pace for.
It was the official talking point with the announcement of the extension that “the Rangers like what Borgen’s brought to the team,” and “he’s one of the reasons the Rangers have turned it around in the last ten games.” The problem is the numbers don’t particularly bear out a Borgen-led Rangers renaissance. While the second pair is undoubtedly better than when it featured Trouba, the team’s overall results aren’t that different.
Season long: 48.86 % of scoring chances | 56.41% of Goals | 49.35 % expected goals | 44.77 % high danger chances | 20.3 % power play success | .902 Save percentage | 10.1 shooting percentage
6-3-1 strech: 48.38 % of scoring chances | 56.41% of goals | 52.12 % of expected goals | 53.25 % of high danger chances | 34.8 Power play success| .913 save percentage | 12.2 Shooting percentage
The key over ten game window was lower event hockey, while the Rangers are generating less raw offense across the board in terms of actual goals, scoring chances and expected goals, the team is also conceding less in all three categories as well as high danger chances at five on five.
Borgen does get some credit for giving the Rangers a functional second pair, but the wins are largely stemming from special teams and goaltending. Creating less offense at five on five and running a strong power play is a calculated trade off that worked in the short term, but wasn’t viable against either the Colorado Avalanche or Carolina Hurricanes to varying degrees.
It’s worth pointing out that the Rangers are earning fewer power play opportunities per game over the last ten games, 2.3, than their season average of 2.6, so there isn’t a massive jump in overall power play opportunities.
All of that to say, it’s possible the Rangers have finally gotten some positive regression on what’s been a staple for the franchise during this window of contention. The Rangers five year average on the power play is 23.34 % and haven’t finished lower than 14th since the truncated 56 game 2021 season.
What it all means
The organization spared itself the embarrassment of being a lottery team the season after winning the President’s Trophy and finishing two games short of Stanley Cup final appearance. But, the playoffs feel like a real unlikely proposition based on the math ahead of them.
Both analytics models and gambling markets have the Rangers under a 50% chance of qualifying for the postseason which leaves the proposition of a cinderella run dissipating by the day.
With the Rangers within shouting distance of a playoff berth in spite of outright abominable hockey in the month of December, expectations are close to business as usual as can be. It took two weeks of a power play operating at 34.8 percent to swing the social media pendulum from sell off re-tool to let’s see what happens down the stretch. There is a reasonable expectation that a Rangers team that was two wins away from representing the eastern conference in the Stanley Cup Final less than a year ago is capable of stumbling into a .625 points percentage over its final 32 games to qualify for the postseason.
Writing Borgen’s name in pen for the next several seasons sends a mixed message against the backdrop of an aging and frankly underperforming team. The team’s four highest point-producing forwards from last season –Panarin, Trocheck, Kreider and Zibanejad – are all going to be at least 32 years old by the start of the 2025-2026 campaign. There’s a strong argument that all three are showing signs of age-related decline, or at the very least increased statistical variance as they respectively age.
At 28, Borgen definitely aligns more with the Shesterkin, Fox, Lafreniere, Miller wave of the team. The problem for that next iteration of the Rangers, whenever it takes shape, is a lack of high-end talent. Beyond Fox and Shesterkin –who are already award winners at the NHL level and haven’t been able to drag a core that’s aging and struggled at five-on-five for their respective primes – there is no slam-dunk next wave of Rangers on the horizon.
The other problem for that next iteration of the Rangers is that Trocheck and Zibanejad are going to be straphangers for most of the remainder of the decade. The former is under contract until 2029, the latter until 2030.
As eager as a pocket of the online community is to point out that a consistently increasing NHL salary cap may assuage some of the long-term financial planning goals, it’s imperative to point out that the Rangers’ books have consistently borrowed from the future in the interim. The longer a franchise tries to maintain a window of contention, the more painful the eventual teardown becomes. Burning draft picks, committing money to aging and flawed players all eventually comes down in a crashing heap.
At present, the Rangers have two “lost in six games to a team from the state of Florida in a Conference Final” banners and Adam Fox who is on pace to be an eventual Hall of Fame-caliber player. The end goal, and the reason Drury was given the dual role of general manager and president of hockey operations, was to usher a core assembled by the previous regime over the finish line and capture the team’s first championship since 1994.
A championship or bust mandate is a high bar – after all, only one team can win the Stanley Cup every season.
But, for all of the Rangers’ refusal to adapt as their core has aged, there simply isn’t room for grace in the direction of the GM and President. He has tethered his job stability to a core that was flawed at its foundational stage and refused to take a more visionary approach to assembling a roster.
It’s lost to history now, but when Drury assumed authority, the Rangers were flush with almost $20 million in cap space. Years of being a non-playoff team rewarded the organization with draft picks and cost-controlled talent. Yet, as one season bled into the next, the Rangers started to lock up those once cheap players one by one. They augmented their homegrown pieces with niche, final-touch players like Barclay Goodrow, Ryan Reaves and Patrik Nemeth.
The logic being that if the team was truly ready to compete, it could afford to splurge on veteran leadership, players who had playoff experience and had a bit of snarl to their respective games. The issue was the team’s young players – in particular Alexis Lafreniere, Kaapo Kakko and Filip Chytil – hadn’t really seized the reins of the team. Instead, they were relegated to supporting cast roles and the team relied heavily on its veteran-laden power play and Shesterkin playing like a top-five goalie in the world.
After four off seasons at the helm, the Rangers have undoubtedly taken at least one, if not two, steps back in their contender status. They are heavily committed financially to aging, expensive veterans who may or may not be declining with several years of team control remaining, lack a next wave of young high-end talent to help carry the load and lack the financial flexibility to swing for the fences in free agency or a trade.
A Complete Unknown
Extending Borgen, for as long as the Rangers did without a huge sample size to work from, gives a peek into the direction of the team. It’s infrequent that a front office gives an honest perspective of what it thinks about its own roster, but extending a player for five years after only
19 games of moonlighting on the second pair is a pretty strong endorsement of both the player and the medium-term future of the team. With no imminent path to overhauling the glaring holes in the roster, committing to a depth piece feels like missing the more glaring issues with the roster.
Analyzing the last six Stanley Cup winners (Florida, Vegas, Colorado, Tampa Bay twice, St. Louis and Washington) portrays a weird contrast for the collection of talent the Rangers are presently working on. Aside from Fox, who’s already won a Norris and been top five in voting every year since his rookie season, this group is a mix of uncertainty.
The average fourth defenseman on the last six Stanley Cup winners is 28 years old, has 436 NHL games played, had a cap hit of $3.48 million and counted for 3.8% against the salary cap. Although Borgen is within the age range, his next deal is worth about half a percent more against the cap and lacks the requisite experience commensurate with both the role and contract associated with it.
While his contract isn’t ridiculously expensive and the salary cap is expected to increase at a reasonable rate for its duration, the Rangers feel like they’re operating from a position of desperation in giving out such a deal. The team has Fox, Borgen and Schneider under contract for next season for a combined $15,800,000. It has decisions to make on Lindgren, who’s an unrestricted free agent for the first time, as well as Urho Vaakanainen and Zac Jones.
There’s a realistic case to be made the Rangers could stand to upgrade at three of the team’s six defensive spots next season to return to contender status before even touching the forward group. With legitimate questions about the viability of Trocheck, Zibanejad, Kreider and Panarin moving forward as play drivers on a contender, the organization could stand to focus on more long-range solutions.
Borgen feels like this regime's iteration of the Brendan Smith extension from last decade. Smith was a perfectly fine defenseman that bolstered a weak group and was a welcome presence during a playoff run that came up prematurely short. But, the contract he signed as a pending unrestricted free agent for four seasons at $4.35 million was a failure the moment he stepped on the ice in training camp the subsequent fall.
Now, Borgen likely won’t show up to camp out of shape and moonlight as a forward in years three and four of his extension, but it is paying market rate or higher for a non-essential role. With such bigger fish to fry in restoring the Rangers to championship caliber, getting hung up enough on 19 games of a fringe top four defenseman feels like missing the forest for the trees.
The Rangers currently have every single light on the dashboard of their car illuminated, but they finally put a garbage can on the headrest of the passenger seat so at least there won’t be garbage on the floor.
The Rangers likely need to improve their first- and second-line center spots as well as their first-line left and right wingers in addition to another top four defenseman to replace the departing Lindgren. The potential fill-ins for those spots are likely aware that the NHL salary cap is finally set to increase at a reasonable rate for the first time since 2019 and are eager to catch up for lost earnings.
The biggest reason extending Borgen feels like a mistake stems from a lack of reflection. Drury and Co. have given the Trocheck, Zibanejad, Panarin, Kreider coalition two cracks at the postseason. At a certain point, coming up short against outright better opponents needs to require a re-calculation as opposed to trying to improve on the margins.
In the regular season, up until this year, this group was more than adequate at beating up on teams at or below its talent level. Last year, career years from Panarin, Trocheck and Lafreniere were enough to drive the single best regular season in the 98-year history of the franchise. But in the postseason, where star players reign supreme, the Rangers forward group was reminded that there are levels to the game.
When they lined Zibanejad up across from Alex Barkov or Brayden Point, the darling of regular season blowouts against the Flyers and Capitals looked a whole lot more like what his underlying numbers said he was. A good but not great player that excelled on the man-advantage and lacked the dynamic abilities of a number-one center on a Stanley Cup winning team.
Of course, with Zibanejad and Trocheck both featuring full no-movement protection until their contracts expire, this party will go on as long as the music keeps playing. Signing Borgen feels like the DJ at the party being pestered to play another song so the patrons don’t have to go home yet. Unfortunately, this party also typically has a $165 per night cover charge and the drinks are $17 a pop.
The longer the Rangers stave off closing the dance floor, the longer the cleaning crew is gonna have to stay to clean it all up.